Tci's Malone: `King Of Cable'

A Huge Bet On A New Information Age

October 14, 1993|By Nancy Ryan.

Whether outraged by his hardball tactics or awed by his vision, observers of John C. Malone seem to agree on at least one thing:

No other telecommunications leader has played as pivotal a role in shaping his industry's future as has the feared, respected and sometimes castigated chief executive of Tele-Communications Inc. and chairman of its spinoff, Liberty Media Inc.

Malone is to the cable industry what the late William S. Paley, builder of the Columbia Broadcasting System empire, was to network radio and television broadcasting.

But unlike Paley, who led New York society with grace and ease while sometimes behaving like an iron-fisted tyrant at work, Malone spends most of his time at TCI's Englewood, Colo., headquarters, appears awkward and shy in social situations and is known for being down-to-earth at work.

Few, however, have been fooled by his shy exterior. Underneath lies a driven competitor with an eye on the big picture and the foresight to pursue new information technologies.

While others were still skeptical about the future of cable, Malone was buying stakes in new or teetering ventures in the 1970s and '80s, including The Discovery Channel; QVC, the home-shopping network; and Court TV. He directed TCI to rescue a debt-laden Turner Broadcasting System during its more fragile days in the 1980s. TCI owns 22 percent of Turner.

Malone, who has a doctorate in operations research, worked as a financial analyst at American Telephone & Telegraph Co.'s Bell Labs and as a management consultant before taking a job at General Instrument Corp. TCI hired Malone as chief executive in the 1970s to turn around the cable system.

Liberty Media is a majority shareholder of QVC Network Inc., which is embroiled in the battle for Paramount Communications.

After TCI was outbid when it tried to buy the Learning Channel, it dropped the channel from its cable systems, and the channel lost so much value that TCI eventually was able to buy it for less.

Malone has been called the "king of cable."

Recently, Viacom Inc., which also is trying to merge with Paramount, singled out Malone in an antitrust suit against TCI for Malone's decision to finance part of QVC's bid for Paramount. Viacom accused Malone of attempting to monopolize cable.